Official new iPad (3rd Generation) Announcement Thread (1 Viewer)

[Carl Miller]

Sam, I thought you might like this. My friend who owns an insurance agency has all his sales people using iPads. He hekd an online conference yesterday and one of the subjects covered was to ask his staff if they were having the hot corner issue with their new iPads. He thought the discussion was funny and sent the transcript to me for laughs. Names removed of course:

Is anyone elses iPad running hot? Not the 2’s, the 3. Whatever its called.
Mines runs a little warmer than my old 2.
Yes but is it hot?
I’d say it’s warm. Just warm. Not hot, warm.
Hey all, mines not hot or warm.
Is this about the hot corner problem I read about?
Yeah is yours hot?
It’s tepid.
Mines lukewarm, like all the food at Mitchell’s Diner.
I must be the unlucky one because mine is pretty damn hot.
Is it scorching?
No it’s not scorching but its more than warm
So its more than warm but not scorching? Is it piping?
You people are getting carried away. It’s hot.
Is it so hot you can’t use it?
I can use it.
So pretty damn hot but not so hot you can’t use it? Isn’t that warm?
No, warm would be toasty. If it was just toasty he wouldn’t say it was pretty damn hot.
You people don’t work enough. It’s too hot in my opinion, ok?
So it’s boiling?
I’m out guys.
I hope he didn’t just burn himself.
How could he burn himself? I would think he’d put it down if it was getting too hot to hold, no?
Not if it was broiling. Broiling can sneak up on you. It’s warm, warm, warm, then all of a sudden it’s broiling!
No no that’s boiling, not broiling. Boiling can sneak up on you. It's simmering one second then next thing you know its boiling.
So it’s not boiling?
He didn’t say if it was boiling. He didn’t answer when we asked.
Right that’s when he left.
I think he was a little steamed.
Or hot under the collar.
It’s time for lunch, let’s go to Mitchells and get some tepid burgers...

 

[Sam Posten]

That's awesome

 

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by Sam Posten /t/319090/official-new-ipad-3rd-generation-announcement-thread/210#post_3909820
I understand the trouble getting an employer to invest in tools, the mentality of 'get the cheapest we can to do the job' is pervasive and I wouldn't work for a company that thinks that way if I could avoid it, and so far I'm doing pretty well on that front. That's a different story than saying it just won't work, which is where you seem to be,

Ah, but I wish that were possible...

My primary location is a standardized Windows Vista rollout. I've begun a 6-step process with 600 check-list items involving six or more people to buy a desktop to run technical software on. I asked how long a typical process takes. They said they don't know as no one's finished it yet since the process was rolled out last year. I'm the local guinea pig and they wish me godspeed!


On the flip side, as I've mentioned before, I know on NASA scientist that uses a Macs with VMWare to do optical design for JWST. (He swears by Fusion, much preferring it over Parallels.)

In any case, I don't know anyone using an iPad professionally in my field. But we prefer to do 21st century work with 20th century tools

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

/shrug. Turn my words on me if you like but I can claim the same thing in this case... All I can say is that my actual experience trumps your supposition. And no, Parallels and VMWare are two distinct products with different focuses and strengths and weaknesses. Try Parallels 7, you might be surprised at how well it runs. I've run Skyrim in emulation on a MBP at usable framerates. We aren't talking chickenfeed excel spreadsheets and email here bud.
It's like my favorite t-shirt says "While you were complaining about it I built something" =)

At the end of the day, this pretty much boils down to where one's passions lie and the context in which one works (and plays), assuming talent is not the issue. And both the former (as well as some bit of the latter) can change in time -- and each is indeed meant to be taken w/ loaded meaning.

Of course, that's just a generalization that isn't meant to cover every possible situation and detail, but there you have it.

RE: the complaining, LOL, I don't know that anyone here is not getting anything done while they're shoot'n the breeze here -- well, perhaps almost anyhow...

Cheers!

_Man_

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

The complete experience is that you don't have to turn wifi on and off manually to manage battery life.

If you haven't noticed, I haven't completely bought dove into the Apple Kool-Aid...

_Man_

 

[DaveF]

Do you have to manually toggle wifi and Bluetooth and 3G on/off repeatedly throughout the day on your devices do they work? That would suck.
I'm glad that's not part of the iPhone & iPad experience.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

What would be best is if the device automatically handled all that, but none of them apparently do. So the next best thing would've been if they offered the option to prompt you w/ a simple confirmation dialog or similar to turn on WiFi (as our NookColor and probably most Android-based devices do) if it's not already on.

The iPad bothers to alert you that WiFi (and cellular data) is off, so why not give you the option to turn it on right there and then instead of forcing you to navigate into that part of the Settings app to do so?

In fact, the NC (and probably most any Android device) makes it easy to toggle WiFi on/off -- just tap the little WiFi-off status icon to bring up the setting and toggle away. No need to navigate into and thru the cluttered, core Settings app to do that.

Having that option just makes sense, if you're gonna bother to allow WiFi to be toggled on/off rather than do it smartly and automatically for the user.

It's quite clear that having WiFi turned off when it's not needed will help conserve battery life, so it's not just some pointless wrinkle, except maybe Steve Jobs & Co. felt they only needed to hit some arbitrary threshold/bar for avg rated battery life and not bother doing more beyond that. Part of the problem is that avg rated battery life rarely ever comes all that close to one's reality in actual practice, and so far, Apple has not convinced me otherwise given *both* my own experiences and those of most others I know or am aware of. Typically, at best, other people say they're satisfied/happy enough w/ whatever battery life they're getting (likely based on previously low expectations), but I almost never see validated claims about truly great battery life to the extent that I shouldn't bother to considering any battery saving measures like turning WiFi off, turning display brightness down, taking extra care w/ how I handle recharging the device, even doing stuff like using higher compression rates for smaller music files (vs using Apple Lossless) especially on HDD-based iPods where storage size should be much less of an issue, etc. etc.

Contrary to what many of you believe, although Apple stuff generally just works, it still won't work optimally w/out a fair amount of coddling. Of course, it's much better that the coddling's mainly only needed for stuff like better battery life, maybe better long term performance, etc. and can often be automated/batched (like w/ how iTunes can take forever to synch, if you don't approach it in certain ways perhaps), but it's definitely not some sort of perfection even though it's generally more reliable and user-friendly (especially for layfolks) than say Android. Somehow, I didn't know that Steve Jobs (at least outwardly) subscribed to the notion that better than the alternative is actually good enough.

So yeah, things could definitely be worse, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be better either...


RE: 3G/4G and BT, I don't know much about that for iOS devices, but near as I can tell, turning them off can definitely matter to battery life for *all* mobile devices, especially if you tend be in places w/ weak 3G/4G signals, which forces the device to keep searching for 3G/4G and use up more power than otherwise. Maybe BT matters least since it's designed for shortest distance, shortest span usage of all those techs, so the specs might lead to designs that are less susceptible to wasting battery life on that aspect as a result.

_Man_

 

[DaveF]

What would be best is if the device automatically handled all that, but none of them apparently do.

??? My iPhone does this. It has about a 5% drain per 8 hrs when not in use. It doesn't keep everything on constantly and self-kill. It's good for a few days left to its own.




Part of the problem is that avg rated battery life rarely ever comes all that close to one's reality in actual practice,


reviews I've read show battery life meeting or beating Apples claims. My experience agrees.

 

[DaveF]

I do wish ther was a checkbox for "I don't have kids" and it would stop asking for my iTunes password when I buy apps. Especially free apps.

 

[Sam Posten]

I can use my iPad for two days straight with both wifi and wireless cooking with no toggling shenanigans, not an issue for me.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Do your iPads (and/or iPhones) often need to reconnect, switch modes, etc. due to weak WiFi and/or 3G/4G signals?

Near as I can tell, that's usually when the issue is biggest.


Anyway, I asked this earlier, but I guess nobody noticed(?). Is there some way to zoom in/out when shooting w/ the built-in camera whether for stills and/or for video? If it's just digital zoom, how's the quality? OR is there inexpensive, quality, 3rd party camera software for this?

I'm thinking a small amount of digital zoom (maybe upto 3x?) would be ok, especially for quick-grab video uses. For stills, I guess we can always just crop-and-resize later -- my wife will likely leave too much dead space in shots anyway -- though I'm guessing PQ could be a tad better if applied during the shot's original in-camera processing, but video would probably be more of a pain to do that later.


Ron (and whoever else),

How is the iPad working for you for turn-by-turn nav GPS? Did you find a good, affordable kit to hold it in your car?


Thanks.

_Man_

 

[DaveF]

Signal's normal, usually, normal sub-urban wifi hotspots popping in and out, and a Bluetooth earpiece used occasionally.
At the theater with no signal at all, I put it into Plane Mode for the three hour movie. A habit from former cell usage. That's a rare exception.
A busy restaurant with att's patented five-bar-no-data I don't worry about it.
As a tourist in NYC and Chicago, we
Didn't manage the phone attennae manually.
There's no optical zoom. Theres digital zoom -I just tried that for the first time

 

[Ronald Epstein]

How is the iPad working for you for turn-by-turn nav GPS? Did you find a good, affordable kit to hold it in your car?

Man,

Not yet. I am waiting till I get close to my next trip.

As much as I would like to use my iPad as a GPS what
worries me is that it would have to be taken out of the protective
case I have it in, and I don't like having it exposed. Also, because
of its weight, I don't trust a suction cup device to hold it in place.
I think I would ultimately have to find is some sort of beanbag mount.
I just looked at one on Amazon, and there was a complaint about it
not being able to properly support the weight of the iPad.

Lastly, I am concerned about data. Will I have to subscribe to
a data plan to use the GPS and how much will it use?

 

[Sam Posten]

TomTom requires no data access, download at home and you are done. Can't tell you on others. If you enable traffic and other features those might sip some data but the maps are part of the install.
I never have to worry about my iPad swapping rapidly between wifi ports or losing wireless when in a stable location. As I said Man-fai it's absolutely never been an issue for me.
I don't use and rarely used the cameras on any of my current or past iPads. The idea of a camera itself is wasted on me, tho I understand why others want it. I think you look like an enormous dork holding a pad up to take a picture, but I'm an enormous dork already so it shouldn't bother me, but it does.

 

[Michael_K_Sr]

Lastly, I am concerned about data.  Will I have to subscribe to
a data plan to use the GPS and how much will it use?

No.

 

[Sam Posten]

That's not empirically true Michael, be careful. There ARE GPS tools that stream the maps to you and in those cases the answer is a resounding and expensive yes.

 

[Sam Posten]

Once again Consumer reports are shown to be completely full of shit.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/03/new-ipad-versus-5-tablet-competitors-which-runs-hottest/
http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/26/2903454/new-ipad-temperature-comparison

 

[DavidJ]

It's interesting and shows how much variance there is to the testing that the results at those two links do not agree with each other.

 

[mattCR]

That's not really a valid thought either.. the iPad does get hot with Infinity Blade II, far hotter then my Kindle Fire, etc. even on top play.. as the article you link points out Sam, that's an iPad exclusive so they can't compare it on other platforms.. and in general things, those other devices get hotter (by about 1 degree, and anything under 100 is pretty "eh" for an electronic device)

The reason why that means something is the overclocker thought: the more you run the CPU at 100% or close, the hotter it gets. Playing Angry Birds etc. should keep the iPad cooler then the competitors, it has more CPU overhead, so it's not working as hard to do it (say, 20% load.. maybe) The report questions how it works at high load. Then again, with mine inside a case, I never notice.. so it really doesn't matter. I tried this with a heat gun, and the highest I've seen my new Ipad was 108. My Kindle Fire never tops 93. But neither of those is crazy.. after all, if I wanted crazy, I could point out the bottom of my OLD retired laptop, a Dell 4300, is 119 degrees almost all the time. The worst laptop I ever owned was so hot all the time that it'd damn near singe the hair off your leg.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

My new iPad definitely is warmer than the first iPad.

Just having it on my lap, browsing the internet and
reading mail I can feel it getting rather warm in the
back. I can just imagine how much warmer it would
be if I was going considerable gaming.